Quote of the week [LWN.net]

Quote of the week

Posted Nov 4, 2005 11:13 UTC (Fri) by daenzer (✭ supporter ✭, #7050)
In reply to: Quote of the week by cventers
Parent article: Quote of the week

> If either NVIDIA or ATI can be forward thinking enough to GPL a driver,
> I think the other will shortly be forced to follow suit when within a few
> generations the entire Linux gamer market segment flocks to the
> competition.

While I wish it wasn't, I'm afraid this is wishful thinking. Not too long ago, ATI provided not only docs and code but even money and engineer time in support of fully free drivers for their then-current cards. That didn't prevent the masses from moving to nVidia's proprietary drivers. Apparently, most of the people who buy graphics cards couldn't care less about free drivers. As long as that's the case, there's little incentive for the vendors to supply them.

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Quote of the week

Posted Nov 9, 2005 0:01 UTC (Wed) by alex (subscriber, #1355) [Link]

Cool. Where are the r300 chipset docs?

Quote of the week

Posted May 16, 2006 2:54 UTC (Tue) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

These guys might know.

Quote of the week

Posted May 16, 2006 2:44 UTC (Tue) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

I think, machiavellian as it may sound, this is actually where license enforcement making it a *PITA* to rely on blobware can be a practical advantage.

There are a lot of these people that can't, or won't look beyond the tip of their nose. They're happy to give up their freedom - when it's easy. Make it a PITA, and they'll suddenly have a whole newfound appreciation for the difference between supported hardware and hardware that might work if you use the right blob.

ATI is still benefitting from their past support. People that want 3d hardware accelleration without blobware generally grab Radeons still, as a result of it. There are still plenty on the market using the supported chipsets, and while they aren't as fast as the blobware only models, they're cheap and often faster than the Intel/Via/S3/Matrox options.

I hope ATI realises why the demand for these old cards is still strong...